Private Grant Boosts Trinity's Efforts

June 05, 1998|By LIZABETH HALL; Courant Correspondent

Trinity College's initiative to improve the lives and education of children in its Hartford neighborhood has received a boost in the form of a $5 million grant from a foundation that promotes social change.

Trinity President Evan Dobelle announced the $5.15 million grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation at a press conference Thursday. It is the largest non-alumni, non-government grant the university has ever received.

``The grant represents strong, unequivocal affirmation of the boldness and appropriateness . . . of Trinity's new stragetic plan: the active and creative engagement of our community in a symbiotic relationship that benefits both college and community mutually,'' he said.

Trinity has taken the lead in a $175 million-plus neighborhood revitalization effort. The initiative includes building three new city schools for students from preschool to high school.

The ``learning corridor,'' as it is called, will contain a magnet Montessori school, a neighborhood middle school and a magnet high school resource center offering special, short-term programs in math, science and the arts. It will serve about 1,000 students, about two-thirds from Hartford, college officials said.

The learning corridor stems from Trinity's recognition that elite urban colleges can no longer retreat from the disadvantaged people outside their walls.

Spokesman Mike Van Buren said the Kellogg Foundation hopes the grant will encourage more colleges and universities to follow Trinity's example.

``They think this is kind of an innovative approach between a college and a community, and we really believe strongly that business, government and nonprofit organizations work together for social improvement,'' he said.

The state has rewarded the college's efforts to the tune of $82 million toward the learning corridor. Additional money has come from corporations and the federal government toward the package of new neighborhood schools, homes, stores and resources that makes up the entire neighborhood initiative.

The larger initiative was developed by the Southside Institutions Neighborhood Alliance, a consortium of area corporations. Trinity is part of the alliance with Hartford Hospital, Connecticut Children's Medical Center, Connecticut Public Television and the Institute of Living.

At Thursday's press conference, state Education Commissioner Theodore S. Sergi praised the project as a groundbreaking model of cooperation among government, business and a college of affluence.

Although Hartford students make up a small percentage of Trinity's population, Sergi said the learning corridor, in combination with magnet schools being opened in Bloomfield, East Hartford, and the University of Hartford, would upgrade the education available to Hartford students.

``When you add together that small fraction, it begins to become a sizable number,'' he said.

Simsbury Superintendent of Schools Joseph Townsley described the learning corridor as ``a renaissance of public education,'' smoothing out the disparity of education that follows the separation of affluent suburban and poor city students.

Taking off from Mr. Rogers' trademark ``Don't you want to be my neighbor,'' Townsley said, ``Right now, everybody wants to be Trinity's neighbor.''